That's ok, just turn on all the tractors, cars, trucks and any vehicle they can spare and point their exhaust towards the fields. Since CO2 is plant food, the tomatoes won't need water. Or something like that. I can't comprehend it.

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Abstract: "An assessment of climate change impacts at different levels of global warming is crucial to inform the political discussion about mitigation targets, as well as for the economic evaluation of climate change impacts e.g. in economic models such as Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) that internally only use global mean temperature change as indicator of climate change. There is already a well-established framework for the scalability of regional temperature and precipitation changes with global mean temperature change (∆GMT). It is less clear to what extent more complex, biological or physiological impacts such as crop yield changes can also be described in terms of ∆GMT; even though such impacts may often be more directly relevant for human livelihoods than changes in the physical climate. Here we show that crop yield projections can indeed be described in terms of ∆GMT to a large extent, allowing for a fast interpolation of crop yield changes to emission scenarios not originally covered by climate and crop model projections. We use an ensemble of global gridded crop model simulations for the four major staple crops to show that the scenario dependence is a minor component of the overall variance of projected yield changes at different levels of ∆GMT. In contrast, the variance is dominated by the spread across crop models. Varying CO2 concentrations are shown to explain only a minor component of the remaining crop yield variability at different levels of global warming. In addition, we show that the variability of crop yields is expected to increase with increasing warming in many world regions. We provide, for each crop model and climate model, patterns of mean yield changes that allow for a simplified description of yield changes under arbitrary pathways of global mean temperature and CO2 changes, without the need for additional climate and crop model simulations."

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“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” ― Leon C. Megginson

This drought is an anomaly, a “flash drought.” It essentially came from nowhere. It didn’t exist just three months ago.

‘Flash drought’ could devastate half the High Plains wheat harvest

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An intense drought has quickly gripped much of the Dakotas and parts of Montana this summer, catching farmers and ranchers off-guard. The multi-agency U.S. Drought Monitor recently upgraded the drought to “exceptional,” its highest severity level, matching the intensity of the California drought at its peak.

The Associated Press says the dry conditions are “laying waste to crops and searing pasture and hay land” in America’s new wheat belt, with some longtime farmers and ranchers calling it the worst of their lifetimes. Unfortunately, this kind of came-out-of-nowhere drought could become a lot less rare in the future.…“It’s devastating,” says Tanja Fransen, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s office in Glasgow, Montana. Just six years removed from 2011, one of the region’s wettest years on record, eastern Montana is now enduring one of its driest.

“We’re at the bottom of the barrel,” Fransen says. “For many areas, it’s the worst we’ve seen in 100 years.”…Across the state, 17 other large fires are also spreading. “We haven’t even hit our normal peak fire season yet”….

I don't know if this is the right thread, but I think we ought to include the role of global cartels in this thread. A small number of companies own the global seed, fertilizer and food chain. Their exposure to climate change risk is enormous, and i see no sign they are insuring against that risk. For a laymans view :

If Everyone Ate Beans Instead of BeefWith one dietary change, the U.S. could almost meet greenhouse-gas emission goals.

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“I think there’s genuinely a lack of awareness about how much impact this sort of change can have,” Harwatt told me. There have been analyses in the past about the environmental impacts of veganism and vegetariansim, but this study is novel for the idea that a person’s dedication to the cause doesn’t have to be complete in order to matter. A relatively small, single-food substitution could be the most powerful change a person makes in terms of their lifetime environmental impact—more so than downsizing one’s car, or being vigilant about turning off light bulbs, and certainly more than quitting showering.

To understand why the climate impact of beef alone is so large, note that the image at the top of this story is a sea of soybeans in a silo in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. The beans belong to a feed lot that holds 38,000 cattle, the growth and fattening of which means dispensing 900 metric tons of feed every day. Which is to say that these beans will be eaten by cows, and the cows will convert the beans to meat, and the humans will eat the meat. In the process, the cows will emit much greenhouse gas, and they will consume far more calories in beans than they will yield in meat, meaning far more clearcutting of forests to farm cattle feed than would be necessary if the beans above were simply eaten by people....

How Deeply Will Rising Temperatures Cut into Crop Yields?Corn and wheat are both at risk, according to a new study that calculates the impact on agriculture for each degree Celsius that global temperatures rise.

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A sweeping study examining decades of research says that yields of the globe's most important crops—providing two-thirds of the world's calories—will plummet as temperatures rise.

For every degree Celsius that the Earth warms, corn yields will go down an average of 7.4 percent, according to the study, which focused on the effects of rising temperatures and did not directly examine other influences related to climate change.

Wheat yields similarly will drop by 6 percent on average for every degree Celsius that temperatures rise, rice yields by 3.2 percent, and soybean yields by 3.1 percent, according to the study. To put that in perspective, governments worldwide have set a goal of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius this century.

How Deeply Will Rising Temperatures Cut into Crop Yields?Corn and wheat are both at risk, according to a new study that calculates the impact on agriculture for each degree Celsius that global temperatures rise.

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A sweeping study examining decades of research says that yields of the globe's most important crops—providing two-thirds of the world's calories—will plummet as temperatures rise.

For every degree Celsius that the Earth warms, corn yields will go down an average of 7.4 percent, according to the study, which focused on the effects of rising temperatures and did not directly examine other influences related to climate change.

Wheat yields similarly will drop by 6 percent on average for every degree Celsius that temperatures rise, rice yields by 3.2 percent, and soybean yields by 3.1 percent, according to the study. To put that in perspective, governments worldwide have set a goal of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius this century.

While temperature increases have been shown to decrease crop yields, that is but one factor in the overall agricultural equation. Another paper has analyzed the changes in temperature and precipitation regionally, finding that the impacts change locally and by crop. For instance, in 20% of the corn growing counties in the U.S., summer temperature was the major factor, and in another 20%, precipitation was the major factor. For soybeans, temperature was the major factor in 14% and precipitation in 24%. Increased solar radiation was found to increase crop yields about 5%. What is important also, but often omitted, is that growing season climate is most important. Changes in winter climate has little effect, except to possibly increase the growing season in temperature limited areas. With warming of the mid-latitudes generally occurring twice as fast in winter as summer, global average temperatures is not the best indicator of future crop yields.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5018813/

It isn't just general increases in temperature that are the problem. Extreme weather events are also a concern

Remember the Eastern USA had a few weeks of high early spring temperatures followed by a cold snap, caused by the extreme Rossby (?) waves that first dragged warm air north into the Arctic and then dragged Arctic Air south.

And the result was:-

"Peach growers in Georgia and South Carolina are reeling from losses in a season that will be remembered for one of the lowest yields in more than 50 years. Will McGehee, Marketing Director for the Georgia Peach Council says 2017 ranks in the Top 5 worst."

Changes in winter climate has little effect, except to possibly increase the growing season in temperature limited areas.

Late snow can be deadly to many crops. Warm springs, can help insects and other organisms dangerous to crops to develop early or never be eradicated by cold. There are many other possible effects that can't be known because such rapid change is new.

To assume climate change will be neutral or good is nothing but religion. The likely outcome is that changes in established weather patterns will bring chaos, until new patterns are established for long enough for humans to adapt. Nature owes humans nothing.

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Changes in winter climate has little effect, except to possibly increase the growing season in temperature limited areas.

Late snow can be deadly to many crops. Warm springs, can help insects and other organisms dangerous to crops to develop early or never be eradicated by cold. There are many other possible effects that can't be known because such rapid change is new.

To assume climate change will be neutral or good is nothing but religion. The likely outcome is that changes in established weather patterns will bring chaos, until new patterns are established for long enough for humans to adapt. Nature owes humans nothing.

Yes, late freezes can be quite damaging. Not sure what your claims about religion have to do with crops, but claiming that change, in and of itself, will bring chaos seems to be more religion than science. These types of studies try to ascertain the effects brought on by specific changes. Making broad claims about changes does little good, if the changes are confined to a small region.

There have already been many events that have been with high probability linked to gw that have had very negative effects on crops in particular years, the European heatwave of '03 and the Russian one of '10 just being the best known.

"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Not sure what your claims about religion have to do with crops, but claiming that change, in and of itself, will bring chaos seems to be more religion than science.

If you break an egg, do you expect an omelette? No. If you break an egg you expect a broken egg. If that egg becomes an omelette or a stinky rotting mess depends on humans performing work on the egg. Information and energy must be spent to make something useful out of a broken egg.

The climate to which each individual region is perfectly adapted to is the best possible climate. That's the egg. Global warming is breaking that egg because it is changing the limits we used to build our infrastructure. There is no reason to think that most places will outright benefit from the random changes unless they can invest information and energy to adapt. There is every reason to think that changes in the climate will push infrastructure beyond it's limits and carry a cost.

The only reason to think that changes in the climate will favor us is if we asume that humans must exist and nature will always adapt to allow for our existence. That defies every observation I have ever made of nature.

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These types of studies try to ascertain the effects brought on by specific changes. Making broad claims about changes does little good, if the changes are confined to a small region.

The whole world is changing, some places before others. But as old systems(the Arctic, glaciers, precipitation patterns, seasonality) are degraded by the warmth the frequency, magnitude and global distribution of change will increase.

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I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Not sure what your claims about religion have to do with crops, but claiming that change, in and of itself, will bring chaos seems to be more religion than science.

If you break an egg, do you expect an omelette? No. If you break an egg you expect a broken egg. If that egg becomes an omelette or a stinky rotting mess depends on humans performing work on the egg. Information and energy must be spent to make something useful out of a broken egg.

The climate to which each individual region is perfectly adapted to is the best possible climate. That's the egg. Global warming is breaking that egg because it is changing the limits we used to build our infrastructure. There is no reason to think that most places will outright benefit from the random changes unless they can invest information and energy to adapt. There is every reason to think that changes in the climate will push infrastructure beyond it's limits and carry a cost.

The only reason to think that changes in the climate will favor us is if we asume that humans must exist and nature will always adapt to allow for our existence. That defies every observation I have ever made of nature.

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These types of studies try to ascertain the effects brought on by specific changes. Making broad claims about changes does little good, if the changes are confined to a small region.

The whole world is changing, some places before others. But as old systems(the Arctic, glaciers, precipitation patterns, seasonality) are degraded by the warmth the frequency, magnitude and global distribution of change will increase.

Just out of curiosity,do you believe that each region has the best possible climate due to a supreme being? Research has shown that these climates have not been stable over time; often changing dramatically. Why do you think that today that they are the best possible?

Change can be good, bad, or indifferent. Broadly claiming that change is bad is a defeatist attitude. Those that automatically assume that all change is bad, tend to live in the past, and fail to progress forward. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, “There can be no life without change, and to be afraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life.”

In Canada we have the assumption that it will get warmer and some of the U.S.'s rain will come north. So, generally better growing conditions. Some hedge funds are already buying cheap unused agricultural land in Northern Ontario to put it into production. Our biggest problem may be lots of pesky Americans trying to get into our paradise, or perhaps taking over our paradise.

The possibility of an equable climate throws these assumptions in the dustbin though, local growing conditions will completely change. In addition, the forecasts for the Prairie (Saskatchewan etc.) don't look so good even without an equable climate.

You can't assume that anywhere is "safe" once the climate gets off its current equilibrium space, there will be many, many surprises in the journey to the next equilibrium.

In Canada we have the assumption that it will get warmer and some of the U.S.'s rain will come north. So, generally better growing conditions. Some hedge funds are already buying cheap unused agricultural land in Northern Ontario to put it into production. Our biggest problem may be lots of pesky Americans trying to get into our paradise, or perhaps taking over our paradise.

The possibility of an equable climate throws these assumptions in the dustbin though, local growing conditions will completely change. In addition, the forecasts for the Prairie (Saskatchewan etc.) don't look so good even without an equable climate.

You can't assume that anywhere is "safe" once the climate gets off its current equilibrium space, there will be many, many surprises in the journey to the next equilibrium.

Similarly, Russia is expected to be a big winner in the coming warming. Many have claimed that the Russian scientists are purposely publishing false data, claiming that the warming is natural, in order to stem global action in combating the issue.

Just out of curiosity,do you believe that each region has the best possible climate due to a supreme being?

Each region has the best posible climate because over the last few generations it evolved to be adapted to the climate of that region. The roads, the houses, the bridges, the local crops, the calendars of activity are all adapted to the climate of region that can sustain them.

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Research has shown that these climates have not been stable over time; often changing dramatically.

That is both true and false depending on the temporal and spatial frame that you choose. In time frames relevant to the climate change debate that is false. The climate have been stable for thousands of years. If the climate was unstable we wouldn't have evolved to be the dominant species of the planet. Of course that doesn't mean the climate hasn't changed, sometimes dramatically. It only means that the changes were easily absorbed by the global civilization, thus we define the climate as stable.

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Why do you think that today that they are the best possible?

Because everything we have built is optimized for the environment where it will work. If those parameters change our infrastructure might fall outside the range of those parameters and not be optimized anymore. Thus the best climate is the one we built everything for.

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Change can be good, bad, or indifferent. Broadly claiming that change is bad is a defeatist attitude.

Yes. For example lets say you have your work area set up in certain way and someone comes around and changes everything. In that case change is most likely bad. You have reasons to have everything setup the way you have it setup. However it could be that some of the changes made you realize a better way to do something, in which case change is good.

That's the type of change that climate change will be.

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Broadly claiming that change is bad is a defeatist attitude.

No one is claiming that change in a general sense is bad. I'm claiming that a particular type of change, climate change, is bad. And it is not defeatist it is realist. It is very likely that most changes in climates will be bad, because, by far, most climate changes are bad in the short term more often than not. That this particular climate change is global, not local make it even worse.

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As Teddy Roosevelt once said, “There can be no life without change, and to be afraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life.”

That does not apply. I'm not afraid of climate change because is something different. I'm afraid of climate change because chances are it will be very very bad.

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Image: Furrows of artificial light lend an otherworldly aura to Westland, the greenhouse capital of the Netherlands. Climate-controlled farms such as these grow crops around the clock and in every kind of weather.

A third of the planet’s land is severely degraded and fertile soil is being lost at the rate of 24bn tonnes a year, according to a new United Nations-backed study. Industrial agriculture is good at feeding populations but it is not sustainable. It’s like an extractive industry.

Worst affected is sub-Saharan Africa, where population growth is faster than anywhere else on earth.

2017 has been a bad year for peaches in the Peach State. Georgia’s disruptively warm winter caused the loss of an estimated 85 percent of the peach crop. “We had fruit here in Georgia from the middle of May to about probably the first week of July, and after that we didn’t have anything else,” said Dario Chavez, an assistant professor in peach research and extension at the University of Georgia.

As temperatures rise globally because of climate change, Georgia is not the only part of the country where warm winters are causing trouble for farmers. California’s cherry crop took a hit in 2014 because of a warm, dry winter. And in 2012, after a warm February and March brought early blooms, Michigan’s apple crop was decimated by an April frost. Farmers have always been at the mercy of the environment, but now agricultural catastrophes brought on by warm winters seem likely to occur with greater frequency.

For trees that fruit each year (such as peaches, cherries, blueberries, almonds and other fruits and nuts), cool weather is as important as warm. Cold air and less sunlight trigger the release of chemicals that halt trees’ growth, prepare them to withstand freezing temperatures and enable them to resume growing the following spring. When a tree enters this dormant state, it sets a kind of internal seasonal alarm clock that goes off once the tree has spent enough time in chilly temperatures. This countdown is measured in so-called chill hours — the amount of time the temperature is between 32 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit. When crops don’t get the chill hours they expect, they can’t properly reset. Buds are delayed, and instead of ripening into juicy, delicious fruit, they remain small and underdeveloped. ...

Extract: "“Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply are just as endangered [as wildlife] and are getting almost no attention,” said Ann Tutwiler, director general of Bioversity International, a research group that published a new report.

“If there is one thing we cannot allow to become extinct, it is the species that provide the food that sustains each and every one of the seven billion people on our planet,” she said in an article for the Guardian. “This ‘agrobiodiversity’ is a precious resource that we are losing, and yet it can also help solve or mitigate many challenges the world is facing. It has a critical yet overlooked role in helping us improve global nutrition, reduce our impact on the environment and adapt to climate change.”"

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“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” ― Leon C. Megginson

Extract: "“Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply are just as endangered [as wildlife] and are getting almost no attention,” said Ann Tutwiler, director general of Bioversity International, a research group that published a new report.

“If there is one thing we cannot allow to become extinct, it is the species that provide the food that sustains each and every one of the seven billion people on our planet,”

The ongoing global appetite for meat is having a devastating impact on the environment driven by the production of crop-based feed for animals, a new report has warned.

The vast scale of growing crops such as soy to rear chickens, pigs and other animals puts an enormous strain on natural resources leading to the wide-scale loss of land and species, according to the study from the conservation charity WWF.

Intensive and industrial animal farming also results in less nutritious food, it reveals, highlighting that six intensively reared chickens today have the same amount of omega-3 as found in just one chicken in the 1970s.

The study entitled Appetite for Destruction launches on Thursday at the 2017 Extinction and Livestock Conference in London, in conjunction with Compassion in World Farming (CIFW), and warns of the vast amount of land needed to grow the crops used for animal feed and cites some of the world’s most vulnerable areas such as the Amazon, Congo Basin and the Himalayas....Protein-rich soy is now produced in such huge quantities that the average European consumes approximately 61kg each year, largely indirectly by eating animal products such as chicken, pork, salmon, cheese, milk and eggs.

In 2010, the British livestock industry needed an area the size of Yorkshire to produce the soy used in feed. But if global demand for meat grows as expected, the report says, soy production would need to increase by nearly 80% by 2050.

Climate change impacts on Africa, in the coming decades, will not be limited to that continent as hunger drives tens to hundreds of millions of people to immigrant primarily northward to the EU (and elsewhere):

Title: "Fall Army Worm Arrives in Africa on the Heels of Climate Change"

Extract: "A rapidly spreading invasive pest now threatens crops across the continent…Endemic to North and South America, the fall armyworm was first spotted in January 2016 in Nigeria. No one knows for certain how it arrived on the African continent, but since its initial appearance the pest has spread to more than 28 countries, including South Africa, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and most recently, Sudan and Mali. As it has spread, it has destroyed more than 740,000 acres of maize, the staple food for more than 200 million Africans."

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“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” ― Leon C. Megginson

Sumatran region heats up as forests disappear• Average temperatures in the Indonesian province of Jambi have risen amid clearing of vast swaths of forest, a new study show.• Areas that have been clear-cut, mostly for oil palm plantations, can be up to 10 degrees Celsius hotter than forested areas.• The warming could make water more scarce and wildfires more common in the province.https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/sumatran-region-heats-up-forests-disappear/

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People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

I have posted before on decline of fish species in tropical waters as they migrate poleward. Here is another paper on that climate effect. The horrible part is that even compared to a baseline period of 1980-2000, by when we had already killed all the fish, they project _another_ 80% decline by midcentury in the tropical pacific. Another obscenity is that the speak in terms of "maximum catch potential." Surely we should be speaking of minimum catch unavoidable ?

“The practices are completely overwhelmed,” said Stephen Carpenter, a University of Wisconsin lake ecologist. “Relying on them to solve the nation’s algae bloom problem is like using Band-Aids on hemorrhages.”

Extract: "By the middle of this century there will be two or three billion more people on Earth. Any one of the issues I am about to list could help precipitate mass starvation. And this is before you consider how they might interact.

The trouble begins where everything begins: with soil. The UN’s famous projection that, at current rates of soil loss, the world has 60 years of harvests left, appears to be supported by a new set of figures. Partly as a result of soil degradation, yields are already declining on 20% of the world’s croplands....Now consider water loss....The next constraint is temperature....Then there are the structural factors....While these multiple disasters unfold on land, the seas are being sieved of everything but plastic....All this would be hard enough. But as people’s incomes increase, their diet tends to shift from plant protein to animal protein....There are no easy answers, but the crucial change is a shift from an animal- to a plant-based diet. All else being equal, stopping both meat production and the use of farmland to grow biofuels could provide enough calories for another 4 billion people and double the protein available for human consumption. Artificial meat will help: one paper suggests it reduces water use by at least 82% and land use by 99%.

The next green revolution will not be like the last one."

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“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” ― Leon C. Megginson

As Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State, thinks - climate change is simply an engineering problem. The good capitalist answer will be:

- Grow all the meat, fish and dairy we want in labs, killing the "natural" version and massively reducing carbon emissions from the ag. sector (the return to the "natural" state will actually make ex-agricultural land carbon-negative). This will also mean that the profits will be concentrated in the rich countries, and the poorer countries ag. sectors will be devastated.Producing many more cheap labourers (and nannies, old-people carers and prostitutes) for the rich capitalist economies. Also, lots of new eco-tourist spots will become available for the rich that can afford it.

- All cars and trucks get replaced with self-driving electric ones, slashing the demand for oil (and plant-based ethanol) and therefore destroying the economies of many of the Middle East and other countries (Venezuela, Iran, Russia?) that rely on oil revenues.

- We geo-engineer the climate to keep temperatures under control, with a few "geo" companies making lots of profits.

A "happy" capitalist version of Soylent Green. There may be a bit of a Schumpeterian "creative destruction" economic crash to deal with on the way (all those bankrupt oil, ag. etc. companies, plus quite a few nations), but it will all work out well in the end. /s

This drought is an anomaly, a “flash drought.” It essentially came from nowhere. It didn’t exist just three months ago....

Sigmetnow's August map and now, four months later ... (Hey, some places aren't worse!)

I've not done this before, but they ask us to:

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Permission to reproduce the mapIf you reproduce the U.S. Drought Monitor map, please use this wording:The U.S. Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Map courtesy of NDMC-UNL.

As global demand booms, a tax on meat may be a way of discouraging overconsumption and paying for the environmental damages of the livestock industry, a new report suggests. But critics believe it would disproportionately affect the poor.

The cost: tuna, sharks, herring, swordfish, cod, shad pushed to narrow areas at surface. Fish get smaller, have shorter lifespans, more disease. There are fewer of them.

My @natgeo story

Climate Change Is Suffocating Large Parts of the OceanA new study says warming has reduced the oxygen levels in large swaths of the deep ocean, threatening marine life around the world.

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One day more than a decade ago, Eric Prince was studying the tracks of tagged fish when he noticed something odd. Blue marlin off the southeastern United States would dive a half-mile deep chasing prey. The same species off Costa Rica and Guatemala stayed near the surface, rarely dropping more than a few hundred feet.

Prince, a billfish expert who has since retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was stumped. He’d studied blue marlin off the Ivory Coast and Ghana, Jamaica and Brazil, and he’d never seen anything like it. Why wouldn't these expert divers dive?

The billfish, it turns out, were trying to avoid suffocation. The marlin near Guatemala and Costa Rica wouldn't plunge into the murky depths because they were avoiding a deep, gigantic and expanding swath of water that contained too little oxygen. The discovery was among the first examples of the many ways sea life is already shifting in response to a new reality that hasn't gotten much attention: Marine waters, even far out in the high seas, are losing oxygen thanks to climate change, upending where and how sea creatures live. ...

We must stop thinking of land and soil as physical limitations to food production. We must stop thinking in two dimensions and start thinking in three: Industrialized food production in warehouses, incorporating levels and levels of food production, requiring relatively tiny amounts of water and essentially no fertilizer, and “powered” by solar-powered LEDs that provide just the right light frequencies the crop needs, to grow faster and more productively. Protected from extreme weather, and compatible with urban, suburban, and rural environments, eliminating most transportation energy costs and its associated food loss.

We’ll mass-produce insects such as crickets for a high-quality protein supply. And develop new ways to process them into tasty, non-bug-like food. Fake chicken nuggets, anyone? Cricket rice?

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People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

It always makes an impression on me how the world's populations find it impossible to accept the wide application of carbon taxes to fight climate change, but have no problem imaging how to use technology to isolate themselves (but most likely not nature) from climate impacts.

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“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” ― Leon C. Megginson

It always makes an impression on me how the world's populations find it impossible to accept the wide application of carbon taxes to fight climate change, but have no problem imaging how to use technology to isolate themselves (but most likely not nature) from climate impacts.

Isolate? I see it more as ‘mitigate.’ In this instance, being forced to move further down the path of processed food we are already on.

The problem with carbon taxes is that they work like a punishment, whereas humans (and many other species) want rewards, even if they are small ones. We want that gold star, even if we say it doesn’t matter to us, and we will change our behavior to get it. So, how do we give out gold stars to those who would pay carbon taxes — seeing that the climate change reward may not be seen in their lifetime?

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People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

In this instance, being forced to move further down the path of processed food we are already on.

I worry about the health implications, given the damage processed food has already done so far. We don't know nearly enough about the impact of diets on human bodies, to go Soylent Green. I also worry about psychological and spiritual implications, but these can't be measured, and thus do not exist.

I'd prefer to take a few steps back, or at least keep one foot on the ball, with things like conservation agriculture (linked by someone this week), if only to put the carbon back into soils and restore ecosystems.

Fascinating article but there is a big missing piece that does not suprise me and every minute terrifies me. I am happy to see that Neven , an aspiring farmer and "prophet" intuitively noticed. How we sink carbon and the ramifications of the prophet / wizard duality will in the end decide the path forward or the way back. The living earth has ramped up the efficiency of our terrestrial and oceanic carbon sinks with the nitrogen, CO2 and heat we have supplied it with. There are limits to the carbon sinks however. The ocean is acidifying , heating and stratifying with the consequent hypoxic results and the eventual negative effects on the biological carbon sinks.Deforestation and carbon stripping of the agricultural lands devoted to agricultural wizardry are heating the atmosphere, melting the polar ice, and slowly choking off ability of those systems to recover. There are tipping points quickly approaching for both of our two major carbon sinks and how we farm may be the only effective way we can sink some of that carbon...long term. Wizardry has been terribly shortsighted to date but there are potential partial solutions like perennial wheatgrass that can help. From my perspective we continue to fail at recognizing the carbon cycle challenges and instead focus on feeding humans, growth ,wealth, etc. Those solutions will lead to huge ecosystem collapses should we move farther and farther from nature and how this planet self regulates it's temperature. We should by now realize what failure to place ourselves within the limits that life on this planet operates within . That will be not only be our own destruction but also the loss of so much other life on this planet. The coral reefs are blinking out before our eyes and we worry about feeding more mouths . The Arctic Ice thins before our eyes and we worry about bringing more lives into the middle classes. The Wizards better get their priorities straight or those few Prophets that are left willing to live within the confines of a simpler life will be rubbed out in the destruction wrought.